I share your frustration, but I think you're over-simplifying the linux issue...
Supporting Mac OS X on X86 and not supporting Linux is nothing short of Laziness now.
This is simply not true. Games for Linux may be more viable than, say, 5 years ago, but it is no means a trivial endeavor to create a cross-platform game that spans Linux, Mac, and Windows. And the Linux desktop market share is still so small there is very little chance it would be profitable. I doubt the profits would even pay for writing an installer RPM, writing Linux-specific documentation, and manning the Linux support calls.
And the fact that all three OS's have x86 implementations doesn't help as you might think. Sure, you might be able to have sections written in assembly that can run in all three targets, but game developers don't need to muck nearly as much as they used to (CPU's are faster, compilers are *much* improved). On the other hand, API's and middle-ware tools are becoming more and more prominent, and depending on which ones you choose and it can have a bit impact on portability.
On the other hand, the bnetd thing *does* piss me off, and I share your frustration. At the time Bnetd was written, battle.net was a horribly broken mess. Bnetd was less of a vehicle for cheating than it was an workaround for when battle.net was down. Honestly I think that Blizzard was embarrassed at being one-upped by a group of part-time OSS hackers.
My *only* beef with this Microsoft is that they were very specific about when this thing was going to be released: May 16 @ 5am PST. In retrospect, they would have had virtually no ill-will if they had just said "We'll try to launch between may 16-18" and leave it at that. That said, I do think people are blowing this **way** out of proportion.
I think Microsoft is foolish to extend the beta to appease people. In doing so, they are admitting that it is actually a free preview
Not necessarily. I mean, if they wanted to have a full 3 weeks, and the deployment was delayed, it seems natural that you'd want to push out the end-date, too. Also, It's pretty clear that this beta has a marketing angle but that doesn't mean that it won't provide useful feedback that Bungie can use.
Microsoft is notorious for having high expectations and grand plans, taking too long to execute, and dropping most of their features, improvements, and changes before the end product is released.
Exactly. Wish I had mod points.
Years ago, Microsoft claimed Vista was going to depricate win32, and that the.NET framework was going to be *the* windows API?
The hybrids (Prius at least from what I checked) are easy to beat by a lot of european diesel cars - VW Polo 62mpg just an example
True, diesel engines are very *fuel efficient*, but fuel efficiency isn't really the issue. The problem is pollution: your typical diesel engine produce about 20% more nitrous oxide (bad for the ozone) and roughly 100x more soot (bad for your lungs). In the USA, you can't even buy a new diesel car in certain states. The new diesels are getting better and bettter in this respect , but it's still worse than your typical gasoline car, and way worse than a gas-hybrid.
Also, keep in mind "hybrid" and "diesel" are not mutually exclusive approaches. You could easily create a hybrid-diesel system and see similar gains in fuel economy. Your VW Polo would get around 100mpg... but it still have the same pollution "footprint" as a Ford Excursion. That's the only reason why you don't see more car companies doing this.
I had the same reaction to this article. It does seem odd that they did do any testing (or if they did, they didn't publish any data) on the effects of equipping a hybrid car with the "intelligent car" features (. As another post on this thread points out, I don't think the gains would be as dramatic, but it would probably be worthwhile.
Per the article, there was a special meeting that could expedites the resolution of the case. However, the meeting was cancelled due to lack of attendance. Here is the contact info for the board members that did not attend, taken from the Board Bios page on the the board website
NOTE: DO NOT HARASS THESE PEOPLE. It will have the opposite effect you wish to achieve. Simply let them know of your approval/disapproval of their actions
STEVE SMELLEY, PRESIDENT - DID NOT ATTEND Quote:(from article) "Smelley, the board president, said the special meeting circumvents the normal disciplinary process and that is why he did not attend."
LAURIE CALDWELL, SECRETARY - DID NOT ATTEND 2610 Planters View Lane Missouri City, TX 77459 Home:281-416-0074 laurie.caldwell@fortbendisd.com
SONAL BHUCHAR - DID NOT ATTEND (out of country) 4306 Keating Court Sugar Land, TX 77479 Home:281-265-9468 sonal.bhuchar@fortbendisd.com
CYNTHIA KNOX - DID NOT ATTEND 3127 East Hickory Park Circle Sugar Land, TX 77479 Home:281-265-1191 cynthia.knox@fortbendisd.com
And here is the info for the public relations department for the school district:
Fort Bend Independent School District Administration Building 16431 Lexington Blvd Sugar Land, Texas 77479 business line: 281-634-1104 cr@fortbend.k12.tx.us
Mary Ann Simpson spokesperson Quote: "Sometimes schools are criticized for overreacting to a situation," Simpson said. "Unfortunately, the days are past when we can just take things lightly and just say, 'Oh well, they were just joking.' "
Kudos to those who at least attended the meeting:
KEN BRYANT, VICE-PRESIDENT - ATTENDED Quote: "I don't want to fault our police for trying to protect us. But once the evidence was found and looked at, I see no compelling reason why this child should not have been sent back to his original campus"
STAN MAGEE - ATTENDED quote: "He did it at his house. Never took anything to school. Never wrote an ugly letter, never said anything strange to a student or a teacher, nothing"
And quick to fall. I cannot believe how swift and concerted this response is. I bet the digg admins are kinda wishing they had, oh I dunno.... EDITORS?
... it seems like a fairly good extortion scheme: pay us or we'll linkfarm you until Google notices and your competition slaughters you. It's like SEO, only in reverse.
Good choice of words. It *would* be extortion, and your gripe would not be with Google, but with the party(or parties) that engaged in such behavior.
These snippits below are a recurring theme in the "Moore's law is bad" camp:
Gammage said, "just to keep up, just to make sure that you're capable of supporting the software that's running within your environment."
I don't understand this perspective - especially on the enterprise side. Did the applications you were running suddenly slow down because a new CPU came out? Then why lament the rate of progress?
One valid argument is the frustration of having to upgrade hardware to get acceptable performance on newer applications. I can empathize, but what's the alternative? You've got three choices, really:
Upgrade hardware to run newer software
Arbitrarily stifle software innovation so that you don't have to upgrade every 12 months
Increase development time so that developers can wring every ounce of efficiency or shave down a footprint*
In my opinion, the the first option lesser of three evils.
The problem is that there are often sustained periods where, despite cramming more transistors onto a chip, no particular incentive--that is no compelling innovation--exists in the industry to prompt people or companies to upgrade their equipment.
I agree. Still, let's extrapolate to some sort of conclusion. Do we tell hardware vendors to hold off until The Next Big Thing warrants better hardware? What if The Next Big Thing is out of the question on current hardware?
Consider folding@home. Developers said, "hey we've got these GPU's that would be perfect, lets use them". Now GPU clients are some of the top performers. Supposing perfected 2D VGA videocards and said "well, that'll do", such an innovation would be impossible.
*I'm sure that someone will reply with "Well this wouldn't be a problem if people didn't write such sloppy code!". Yes, sure sure. People wrote much better code back in the day and you had to walk 5 miles in the snow just to get to school and all that. Whatever. Even if all coders were brilliant, I would still prefer to have their brilliant minds focused on new features than on fitting code into hardware constraints.
Look. It's just like the QR Codes in Japan. What makes them so special is that you can encode much, much more data into them than a typical barcode (the blac&white QR codes can hold about 3KB, I assume this color version can do better). This lets you encode a ton more data about a product than w/ a typical barcode.
Basically it holds all of the promise of RFID with none of the scary privacy issues. But this is slashdot, so I realize I must spin this as evil. DIE MICROSOFT DIE! There, happy?
Can we somehow get you adopted into my family!? As a kid I used to think that Monopoly took too long. Then in high school I ran across some kids in my 3rd period class that would all play through lunch. That's 50 minutes!!! I asked them if they played using alternate rules and they looked at me like I was from mars. Nope. The problem that was my family had instituted virtually all of the loopy "house rules". Here's just a few:
You had to pass Go once before you can purchase a property
No auctions. If five people before you land on a property and don't buy it, tough luck
Contracts and Immunity deals so complex you might need a Notary
Anything that would otherwise go to the bank instead goes into that [censored] Free-Parking windfall.
Agreed. Most of the pointed questions in this thread seem to underscore a problem with Sony's public relations. I wonder if Sony doesn't even recognize the PR problem, or if they simply consider good PR a priority.
I'm not sure if your comment was meant as a jab at Bill Hilf, or if your just literally meant that it seems incongruous to find Bill Hilf and Bill Gates in the same roof. I'll assume the latter - I agree it seems odd.
The cynical side of me thinks that this is purely a political gesture, and that Microsoft is giving him a "window seat" with little influence inside of microsoft.
However, Microsoft attempted the same thing with Robert Scoble. Most people wrote him off as a shill, but he (IMHO) brought about real, substantive change in how Microsoft communicated with the outside world, and that they are now a more "transparent" company, especially with the development community.
Maybe he's a "double agent". I'm hoping that, even if Microsoft is being disingenuous, that Bill Hilf is able to undermine this attitude from within the inside?
"We want music without DRM. But we can't license FairPlay, 'cus hackers would... remove the DRM. The DRM we claim we dont really want. Yeah."
Yeah I'm being trite, but I still find think it's a contridiction to campaign for DRM-free music while claiming that you're worried about your DRM being compromised.
My hunch is that Fairplay is less about iPod lock-in and more like Zune lock-out. iTunes is your classic loss-leader* as it really only exists to add value to the iPod, which they make a tidy profit on. That being the case, there's no upside for Apple to sell at-cost music for devices they don't sell. The model would have to change, and I suspect that 99-cent downloads would become a thing of the past.
*Yes yes... i know that $0.99 downloads are more profitable than CD sales, but that's only for the MAFIAA. Apple only makes a few pennies off of that $0.99
You're absolutely right that drug companies advertise to doctors. Always have. And it'd be silly to think that there isn't any influence.
Here's the key difference: a doctor with 7+ years medical training is far better equipped to sift through marketing bullshit than your average patient.
I'm sure that they are aware of the importance of noice cancellation. However, what do you want to bet that their own DRM hand-wringing is the culprit? My theories:
They *can't* do proper noise cancellation, because you does not allow you to set up a pass-through loop. This is to prevent you from re-encoding your DRM music in an unprotected format, but it's also necessary for noise cancellation.
They try to noise cancel as best they can, but external microphone inputs are purposely degraded so as to prevent you from recording copyrighted music. Maybe noise cancellation is hamstrung because the degraded signal doesn't match the playback source?
I'm pretty ignorant of the science behind all this but I'm certain that DRM concerns are a big factor in why this exploit is even possible. I expected this DRM business to bite them in the ass, but I didn't expect it to bite them on day one. ouch.
In theory it should be possible for the AACS LA to identify the players responsible for the breach and prevent later pressings of discs from playing back on those players until they are updated.
Personally, I can't wait for this key revocation to happen. The thing is, 95% of consumers have no idea what the hell DRM is. I'd wager that 95% of the people that own a hi-def player are blissfully unaware of the implications of key revocation are. Send out the key revocation lists and all that is about to change.
So magine the shit-storm when customers start flooding the Best Buy customer support aisle thinking that their machine is broken, when if fact it "works" just fine and the movie industry has shut down your player because some hacker is using its AACS key.
This is similar to my situation. I upgrade often but only had one working desktop at a time. Now I use the Windows "Flea Market" distro, but my pirate status isn't so clear cut. I have one computer and I've purchased one XP license.
I have to wonder how many people fall into my category. If anything, this 1-in-5 statistic is an indictment WGA and it's reliability in determining whether or not you are "Genuine".
It seems clear that Timbaland jacked the material in question. However, to my knowledge Tempest wasn't making any kind of money from 'Acid Jazzed Evening' and didn't have a registered his work (you don't have to register a work for it to be copyrighted, I believe it does affect your success in seeking damages). Furthermore, Tempest wasn't selling his music, and he never tried to seek an injunction or royalties from the demoscene author who made the c64 version. So it's not like Timbaland's offense hurt Tempest's income.
On the other hand, the fact that Nelly Furtado's 'Do It' is relatively popular indicates that the original track had 'Commercial Value', which is the money phrase that lawyers use in these rapper sampling lawsuits.
So, I'd say Tempest has a good case in seeking an injunction against the songs distribution, but his claim at damages is hurt by the fact that he was being kind of free-spirited about his song for six years, and has now started taking offense now that somebody is making money off of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, I don't get this game at all. I read several stories about EVE, and the interesting thing that they have in common is that
- Nobody seems to be having fun
- Everybody takes it way too seriously
.I recognize all of your words as English, but I have no idea what you just wrote.
This is simply not true. Games for Linux may be more viable than, say, 5 years ago, but it is no means a trivial endeavor to create a cross-platform game that spans Linux, Mac, and Windows. And the Linux desktop market share is still so small there is very little chance it would be profitable. I doubt the profits would even pay for writing an installer RPM, writing Linux-specific documentation, and manning the Linux support calls.
And the fact that all three OS's have x86 implementations doesn't help as you might think. Sure, you might be able to have sections written in assembly that can run in all three targets, but game developers don't need to muck nearly as much as they used to (CPU's are faster, compilers are *much* improved). On the other hand, API's and middle-ware tools are becoming more and more prominent, and depending on which ones you choose and it can have a bit impact on portability.
On the other hand, the bnetd thing *does* piss me off, and I share your frustration. At the time Bnetd was written, battle.net was a horribly broken mess. Bnetd was less of a vehicle for cheating than it was an workaround for when battle.net was down. Honestly I think that Blizzard was embarrassed at being one-upped by a group of part-time OSS hackers.
Not necessarily. I mean, if they wanted to have a full 3 weeks, and the deployment was delayed, it seems natural that you'd want to push out the end-date, too. Also, It's pretty clear that this beta has a marketing angle but that doesn't mean that it won't provide useful feedback that Bungie can use.
Exactly. Wish I had mod points.
Years ago, Microsoft claimed Vista was going to depricate win32, and that the
True, diesel engines are very *fuel efficient*, but fuel efficiency isn't really the issue. The problem is pollution: your typical diesel engine produce about 20% more nitrous oxide (bad for the ozone) and roughly 100x more soot (bad for your lungs). In the USA, you can't even buy a new diesel car in certain states. The new diesels are getting better and bettter in this respect , but it's still worse than your typical gasoline car, and way worse than a gas-hybrid.
Also, keep in mind "hybrid" and "diesel" are not mutually exclusive approaches. You could easily create a hybrid-diesel system and see similar gains in fuel economy. Your VW Polo would get around 100mpg... but it still have the same pollution "footprint" as a Ford Excursion. That's the only reason why you don't see more car companies doing this.
I had the same reaction to this article. It does seem odd that they did do any testing (or if they did, they didn't publish any data) on the effects of equipping a hybrid car with the "intelligent car" features (. As another post on this thread points out, I don't think the gains would be as dramatic, but it would probably be worthwhile.
the board website
NOTE: DO NOT HARASS THESE PEOPLE. It will have the opposite effect you wish to achieve. Simply let them know of your approval/disapproval of their actions
And here is the info for the public relations department for the school district:
Kudos to those who at least attended the meeting:
And quick to fall. I cannot believe how swift and concerted this response is. I bet the digg admins are kinda wishing they had, oh I dunno.... EDITORS?
Good choice of words. It *would* be extortion, and your gripe would not be with Google, but with the party(or parties) that engaged in such behavior.
...so we may continhe to complain about it incessantly.
One valid argument is the frustration of having to upgrade hardware to get acceptable performance on newer applications. I can empathize, but what's the alternative? You've got three choices, really:
- Upgrade hardware to run newer software
- Arbitrarily stifle software innovation so that you don't have to upgrade every 12 months
- Increase development time so that developers can wring every ounce of efficiency or shave down a footprint*
In my opinion, the the first option lesser of three evils.I agree. Still, let's extrapolate to some sort of conclusion. Do we tell hardware vendors to hold off until The Next Big Thing warrants better hardware? What if The Next Big Thing is out of the question on current hardware?
Software innovation prompts hardware innovation, and hardware innovation prompts software innovation.
Consider folding@home. Developers said, "hey we've got these GPU's that would be perfect, lets use them". Now GPU clients are some of the top performers. Supposing perfected 2D VGA videocards and said "well, that'll do", such an innovation would be impossible.
*I'm sure that someone will reply with "Well this wouldn't be a problem if people didn't write such sloppy code!". Yes, sure sure. People wrote much better code back in the day and you had to walk 5 miles in the snow just to get to school and all that. Whatever. Even if all coders were brilliant, I would still prefer to have their brilliant minds focused on new features than on fitting code into hardware constraints.
You're anti-MS zealotry is clouding your mind.
Look. It's just like the QR Codes in Japan. What makes them so special is that you can encode much, much more data into them than a typical barcode (the blac&white QR codes can hold about 3KB, I assume this color version can do better). This lets you encode a ton more data about a product than w/ a typical barcode.
Basically it holds all of the promise of RFID with none of the scary privacy issues. But this is slashdot, so I realize I must spin this as evil. DIE MICROSOFT DIE! There, happy?
Why do I never ever hit that preview button??
apparently all my time playing monopoly was diverted from learning html. sorry.
Ugh. No wonder it would take hours.
Agreed. Most of the pointed questions in this thread seem to underscore a problem with Sony's public relations. I wonder if Sony doesn't even recognize the PR problem, or if they simply consider good PR a priority.
I'm not sure if your comment was meant as a jab at Bill Hilf, or if your just literally meant that it seems incongruous to find Bill Hilf and Bill Gates in the same roof. I'll assume the latter - I agree it seems odd.
The cynical side of me thinks that this is purely a political gesture, and that Microsoft is giving him a "window seat" with little influence inside of microsoft.
However, Microsoft attempted the same thing with Robert Scoble. Most people wrote him off as a shill, but he (IMHO) brought about real, substantive change in how Microsoft communicated with the outside world, and that they are now a more "transparent" company, especially with the development community.
Maybe he's a "double agent". I'm hoping that, even if Microsoft is being disingenuous, that Bill Hilf is able to undermine this attitude from within the inside?
Will the pay version of gmail still serve me ads? I'd pay $50/year for the ad-less gmail alone.
Hold on now. You're telling me that, all this time, HP and IBM participate in open source game for their own financial gain ? How can this be?
My hunch is that Fairplay is less about iPod lock-in and more like Zune lock-out. iTunes is your classic loss-leader* as it really only exists to add value to the iPod, which they make a tidy profit on. That being the case, there's no upside for Apple to sell at-cost music for devices they don't sell. The model would have to change, and I suspect that 99-cent downloads would become a thing of the past.
*Yes yes... i know that $0.99 downloads are more profitable than CD sales, but that's only for the MAFIAA. Apple only makes a few pennies off of that $0.99
You're absolutely right that drug companies advertise to doctors. Always have. And it'd be silly to think that there isn't any influence.
Here's the key difference: a doctor with 7+ years medical training is far better equipped to sift through marketing bullshit than your average patient.
I'm pretty ignorant of the science behind all this but I'm certain that DRM concerns are a big factor in why this exploit is even possible. I expected this DRM business to bite them in the ass, but I didn't expect it to bite them on day one. ouch.
So magine the shit-storm when customers start flooding the Best Buy customer support aisle thinking that their machine is broken, when if fact it "works" just fine and the movie industry has shut down your player because some hacker is using its AACS key.
I can't wait.
This is similar to my situation. I upgrade often but only had one working desktop at a time. Now I use the Windows "Flea Market" distro, but my pirate status isn't so clear cut. I have one computer and I've purchased one XP license.
I have to wonder how many people fall into my category. If anything, this 1-in-5 statistic is an indictment WGA and it's reliability in determining whether or not you are "Genuine".
Check out 10 Big Myths About Copyright, which has boiled down some of the finer points of copyright law.
It seems clear that Timbaland jacked the material in question. However, to my knowledge Tempest wasn't making any kind of money from 'Acid Jazzed Evening' and didn't have a registered his work (you don't have to register a work for it to be copyrighted, I believe it does affect your success in seeking damages). Furthermore, Tempest wasn't selling his music, and he never tried to seek an injunction or royalties from the demoscene author who made the c64 version. So it's not like Timbaland's offense hurt Tempest's income.
On the other hand, the fact that Nelly Furtado's 'Do It' is relatively popular indicates that the original track had 'Commercial Value', which is the money phrase that lawyers use in these rapper sampling lawsuits.
So, I'd say Tempest has a good case in seeking an injunction against the songs distribution, but his claim at damages is hurt by the fact that he was being kind of free-spirited about his song for six years, and has now started taking offense now that somebody is making money off of it.